


A Kiss to Build a Dream On

by msculper



Category: Turn (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1940s, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-17
Updated: 2017-01-17
Packaged: 2018-09-18 02:31:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9362030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/msculper/pseuds/msculper
Summary: “We really are sorry, Ben. You two were good friends.” Anna subtly nudged Selah and shot him one of those glances that could only be interpreted between a couple in love.Ben would know.“There’s nothing I can do now.” Ben swept a finger through the condensation on his bottle. “Just get back in the saddle.” He stared at Caleb.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I'm alive!  
> This is what happens when you listen to too much big band and Postmodern Jukebox.  
> Like half of the dialogue is from the 1954 holiday classic White Christmas because I am unoriginal and I love that movie more than myself.

Somehow, Benjamin found himself here. On a balcony looking out at Connecticut across the sound, the strains of a song dying out behind the glass doors behind him, and his shadow crisp on the freshly cut grass between the house and the water. His cigarette hung lazily from his fingers where his elbows were propped on the marble railing. He took a long drag and held it in his throat for several seconds before puffing it out into the early summer breeze. As he tapped the ashes into the bushes just beyond the balcony - Judge Woodhull wouldn’t mind - he heard the door swing open behind him and the slow, rhythmic click of dress shoes trailed up to stand next to him at the railing. 

“Gotta light?” Ben turned to see a handsome stranger standing next to him, pulling a box of cigarettes out of his jacket. 

“Sure thing.” He held up his lighter, eyes trained on the stranger’s face as he held his cigarette over the flame and inhaled. “Benjamin Tallmadge. How do you do?”

“Caleb Brewster. Mutual, I’m sure.” Caleb winked as he handed back the lighter. “You sure know where to find the party, Mr. Tallmadge.” Ben looked over Caleb: stylish suit, dark curls waxed back, and well-manicured hands. Caleb’s deep brown eyes shined in his boyish face as he looked over at Ben.

Crushing his nearly dead cigarette under the heel of his shoe, Ben stuffed his hands in his pockets. “My friends at Yale say that I  _ am _ the party, thank you very much.”

“Any friends I would know?”

“You know Nathan Hale?” He answered too quickly. “He was my roommate.”

“Can’t say I do.” Caleb was blowing smoke rings against the brightly lit backdrop of the clear Long Island sky. 

Ben, content to watch Caleb smoke and look at the twinkling lights across the sound in the silence, leaned on the railing and adjusted his cuff links. His suit was somewhat out of style, but he’d had it forever and he’d be damned if he was going to go out and buy a new one for Abraham Woodhull’s celebration of  _ finally _ passing the bar. 

“How do you know Woody?” Caleb’s voice brought him back to reality like an outstretched hand through a dream. 

“We grew up together. Right down there, a couple streets over.” Ben pointed down the coast a few miles, his shadow on the grass moving with him. Lights danced in Caleb’s eyes as he jerked his head towards the mansion behind them and quirked his eyebrows in question. “The Judge didn’t buy this drafty old place until after the wife died about three years ago. And how would you know the old bastard?”

Caleb mused over a mouthful of smoke. “Mutual friends.”

“Any friends I would know?” Caleb all but rolled his eyes in mock annoyance. 

The door swung open behind the two, much more dramatically than either of the men had opened it, to reveal a tall brunette in a red sheath. “Ben!” Her face split into a dazzling smile as she rushed to hug him. “It’s been too long, old boy.” The way Ben and Caleb had turned to face her, the backs of their hands brushed ever so slightly. Ben mentally noted that Caleb wasn’t exactly pulling away. 

“Anna, have you met Caleb Brewster?” He asked, mostly for the excuse to place his hand on Caleb’s back and gesture towards him with a pointed grin. It was half a step up from “ _ Anna, have you noticed that I’m actually socializing? _ ”

“Of course, Benjamin, I only brought him.” Anna strode between them, linking each arm through one of Ben’s and one of Caleb’s and leading back inside. 

Dozens of chandeliers glittered over the heads of the hundreds of immaculately dressed party-goers and the sizable live band in one corner of the huge ballroom. Flutes of champagne were immediately pressed into their hands as they made their way around the edge of the dancefloor. 

Once they finally found a spot suitable to Anna’s taste, she formally introduced them. “Benjamin Tallmadge: Yalie, but a Long Island boy at heart. He grew up with Abe and I, so if you ever need any gossip, I will more than willingly supply it. Caleb Brewster: a friend of Selah’s from down in New Jersey. He’s a sailor and  _ quite _ the charmer once you get past the surly outer shell.” 

Caleb lifted his glass. “I’ll drink to that, Annie.”

Around a smile, Ben downed most of his champagne. The gentleman he was, he grabbed Anna’s glass to fill it with punch from the table behind him. As he turned, he heard Anna whispering to Caleb, “He hasn’t been out of the house in three months. I’m surprised he hasn’t starved to death.”

“Three months?”

“His beau went to war and he hadn’t heard anything for nine.”

“His  _ beau _ ?”

“His beau.”

“Oh.”

“ _ Oh _ .”

Once he turned back around, Caleb was slightly blushing - probably the alcohol and the party - and Anna was smirking her usual up-to-no-good smirk. Before he could shoot her his usual what-the-hell-are-you-up-to look, Abe nearly crashed into the three of them with a strawberry blonde in tow. “Caleb! Ben! Annie!” Clearly tipsy. “You finally out and about?” He asked Ben in his usual asshole- _ also _ -up-to-no-good way. Maybe it was just Ben, but Caleb seemed to stiffen beside him.

“You finally out of law school?” He joked back. 

Abe let out a peal of laughter. “Hey, I’d like to see you pass the bar, Tallmadge.”

“Betcha it would take me less than seven times, Woodhull.”

Abe chuckled and swung an arm around Ben’s shoulders. He gently nudged the woman beside him forward by the waist. “Lady and gents, this is Mary. Her father works with Thomas in the city.”

Her smile was wide and pinked with alcohol. “It’s nice to meet you all.” 

As the band swelled with another up-tempo song, Abe and Mary allowed themselves to be swept into the crowd of dancers and away from Ben, Caleb, and Anna. 

An authoritative hand tapped on Ben’s shoulder. Turning, he found himself face to face with Anna’s fiance, Selah, decked out in military dress. “Benjamin!” Selah hugged Ben and released him with a grin over Ben’s shoulder at Anna. “How’ve you been these days?” 

Ben’s throat constricted at the olive material of Selah’s uniform and the pleats of the pockets and the taught knot of the tie at his neck and the spotless boots. He collected himself - “Fine. It’s good to see you, and a belated congratulations on snagging this gem.” He gestured behind him at the woman in question, blushing nearly as red as her dress. Selah stepped between Ben and Caleb to get to Anna, sweeping her up mid song and dancing her into the crowd. 

“Excuse me.”

He spoke or mouthed or simply thought those words: Ben wasn’t entirely sure. He just slid himself around the dancers and back outside. Outside. Where the cool night air burned his lungs and turned the tears gathering in his eyes to fire. Where he set shaking hands on the cool marble railing and timed his breaths to the breaking of waves on the shore. Where he heard the click of dress shoes, again, on the tile behind him.

Caleb gently lowered a solid hand between Ben’s shoulder blades. Ben flinched in his vulnerability. 

“I’m sorry.” If he noticed the wavering of Ben’s voice or the streams of hot tears twisting down Ben’s cheeks, Caleb didn’t say anything. “That uniform.” He kneaded his lips together and clenched his jaw.

Caleb ran straight, white teeth over his bottom lip. “Do you need to talk it out?”

“Nathan… he looked just like that. Better.” He convinced his hands to settle enough to absentmindedly crack a knuckle. “And he’s dead.” Caleb’s unnecessarily round brown eyes bore into the side of Ben’s head. “No picture, no letter, nothing personal, just a dog tag and a document with his name written in on a blank.” 

“Benjamin, it’s natural to mourn.” Caleb seemed not to know what to say. “Once,” he paused, “a fellow sailor fell overboard and drowned.” He looked out at the Sound. “I haven’t set foot on that boat since.” 

Ben couldn’t imagine. If he got mad at the goddamned G.I. green color wherever it appeared, it must have stung so much more to live and work on the very being that had taken a friend. “A friend?”

Caleb sighed and took his hand from Ben’s back. “More than a friend.”

“Dance with me.”

Caleb looked at him warily and empathetically at the abrupt reversal of tone. “Dance with you?” 

“Yes.” Ben swallowed. “It’s Tommy Dorsey and I love Tommy Dorsey.” He extended a hopeful hand.

“Thankfully for you, I never can turn down Tommy Dorsey.” Caleb winked as he took Ben’s hand and let Ben lead in small circles around the lengthening shadows of the balcony. 

They swayed into a rhythm all their own. Caleb fit with him in a way Ben had forgotten a person could fit, stepping completely with Ben, even on steps between songs with different beats. They were a separate entity from the party inside, though they were dancing to the same music on the same night. And if anyone saw them this close, well, then, that was their issue. Abe wouldn’t care and the Judge was elsewhere in the building, probably sipping scotch and discussing business. 

The band slowed to a slow, romantic song:  _ But you’re lovely, with your smile so warm, and your cheeks so soft, there is nothing for me but to love you, just the way you look tonight _ . Suddenly drawn in by Caleb’s eyes peeking up at him through impossibly long eyelashes and his cheeks reddening at the lyrics and how closely they had grown to be to each other, Ben leaned down to meet him. 

Their lips brushed in a sensation just shy of a kiss. After a breath of space, Caleb leaned up and crashed their lips together, melting against Ben’s chest. 

***

The bar was nearly deserted so late in the night, but the six of them - Ben, Caleb, Anna, Selah, Mary, and Abe - stumbled in after the party to wind down. The bartender looked less than thrilled an already tipsy party interrupting the relative quiet, but Abe slid a wad of cash across the bar that melted the tense glare from his brow. They found a booth in the back corner to occupy. 

“Awfully cosy: boy girl boy, boy girl boy,” Abe crooned about the seating arrangement over his bottle of sweating beer. Mary was squeezed between him and Ben, while Anna was curled into Selah’s side, leaving Caleb on the end across from Ben. Ben tucked his ankle around Caleb’s until the bartender shuffled over with drinks more complex than bottles for the ladies. 

The conversation floated from Anna’s job search, to Abe’s summer plans, to nostalgic tales from their childhood, and finally settled on Ben, much to his chagrin.

“We’ve missed you, Benny,” Abe mused after a lull. 

“Well I haven’t reached out,” he confessed. “Between class and the crippling loneliness, I’m afraid that was far from my mind.” 

Anna shot him a loaded look, giving pause to the kidding smile that had spread across his lips. 

The rest of the table - ties loosened and heels slipped off - laughed with Ben, oblivious to Anna’s concern. “We really are sorry, Ben. You two were good friends.” Anna subtly nudged Selah and shot him one of those glances that could only be interpreted between a couple in love. 

Ben would know.

“There’s nothing I can do now.” Ben swept a finger through the condensation on his bottle. “Just get back in the saddle.” He stared at Caleb. 

Abe cleared his throat. “How’s Yale dealing with it?” 

“They’ve been alright. They don’t know the whole story, of course, but they understand. The students especially.” Everyone shot Anna confused looks, except for Caleb. Caleb was looking at Ben. With those big, brown, soft, feeling eyes. “I’m gonna go take a smoke break. Anyone?” Out of the corner of his vision, Ben saw Anna all but push Caleb out of the booth and stare daggers at everyone else at the table. 

They walked around the corner of the bar, just out of sight of the yellow, flickering streetlights.

Ben scuffed at the damp pavement and leaned against the brick of the building, lighting his cigarette in the deep shadows. He looked up in time to see Caleb lighting his own cigarette. 

“Seriously?” Caleb gazed back at him with those dancing eyes and raised an eyebrow. “Not three hours ago you asked  _ me _ for a lighter.”

At that, Caleb laughed. A shy, twinkling laugh that started in Ben’s gut and spread to the tips of his toes. “Wouldn’t you take the chance to talk to a handsome stranger?” He bit his lip and averted his eyes from Caleb’s silhouette lit up by soft light. “I apologize if I’m being too forward, Ben,” Caleb mumbled softly around his cigarette. 

Ben lifted his head. “No, it’s refreshing.”

“I would have thought you’d have several people flattering you.”

“Oh, plenty. A few students, a few staff.” Ben pondered a mouthful of smoke. He let his eyes rove up and down Caleb. “But none have piqued my interest.”

Caleb stepped into his space. “I find that hard to believe, Mr. Mysterious Yale Professor.” Ben bravely kept his eyes locked into Caleb’s and not on his lips as Caleb leaned even closer towards him. 

He swiveled his head to look out at the street, nervous and contemplative. “We’ve known each other for all of four hours.” With the feverish feeling of Caleb’s gaze burning his skin, Ben took a deep, labored breath.

The skin of Caleb’s hand brushed his. “If you don’t mind my asking,” he whispered, “how long did you know your beau before you knew?”

When Ben smiled, it felt miles away. “Seventeen minutes.” When he turned back around, Caleb felt miles closer. “So you should know that I fall fast, and I fall hard. If that’s not what you’re looking for, then…” he trailed off, caught up in Caleb’s smiling eyes and the already familiar blush in his cheeks. 

Caleb’s lips were softer than he remembered, loosened by alcohol and a smug smile. One of Caleb’s hands was experimentally creeping around his waist, making Ben sigh at the intimacy. He would vaguely recall dropping his cigarette as he wound his arms around Caleb’s neck and his hands into Caleb’s hair. 

***

He drove home through the dark, recounting the slide of his lips against Caleb’s and the soft sounds Caleb had pleaded into his mouth. Ben fell into bed, hoping for the first time in months that his bed was full instead of trying to forget that it was empty. 

And if he dreamt of brown eyes as deep and meaningful as the sea, well, no one had to know. 


End file.
